Analysis: Steve Stockman shakes ‘em up in Washington … again

The Republican establishment awaited Steve Stockman’s return to Washington with some trepidation.

After all, this is the guy who, in a single, memorable term in Congress from 1995 to 1997, made national headlines for his contacts with domestic militia figures, his suggestion that the Clinton administration burned down cult leader David Koresh’s Waco compound as a pretext to push for gun control, and his relentless efforts to discredit biologist Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 report on American sexual behavior. Democrats tarred the thirty-something conservative as the poster child for the rhetorical and ideological excesses of the 1994 Republican revolution, and Stockman was defeated for re-election in 1996.

Following the Friendswood accountant’s 2012 comeback in the newly drawn 36th Congressional District in Southeast Texas, many Washington insiders wondered if Stockman, now 56, had mellowed with age.

The answer, in a word: No!

“He is the same Steve Stockman he ever was,” says California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, another noted hell-raiser in the House. “Steve takes his principles seriously. He ruffles a lot of feathers on both sides of the aisle. Other people, who are afraid to say the obvious, are upset by Steve. He has the courage to say what they don’t.”

In a Texas congressional delegation known for housing the Capitol’s largest collection of hard-line conservatives, the plain-spoken Stockman still stands out for his audacious commentary on current events and his willingness to go where nobody else — including firebrand freshman Sen. Ted Cruz — will go.

Within a week of his return to Congress, the second-time freshman had suggested impeaching President Barack Obama for abusing his constitutional powers by issuing some two dozen executive orders related to firearms and gun violence. He received the applause of gun-rights champions — and the ridicule of the mainstream media — by inviting profanity-spewing rock musician and Second Amendment activist Ted Nugent to attend Obama’s State of the Union address. He introduced legislation to end all “gun-free school zones” in the United States, and he accused the White House of unleashing an army of “fake, computer-generated spambots” to post pro-gun-control comments on social media. Inviting colleagues to a breakfast discussion of gun rights, he offered free chow and a stark warning: “Grab free donuts and coffee before Obama grabs your gun!”

Typical of the searing Stockman style was his reaction to the death of Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez — a fiery rant aimed at American liberals.

“We would … like to hear America’s leftists explain how ‘champion of the poor’ Chavez racked up personal wealth of over $1 billion while his people suffered food shortages,” Stockman declared in a statement released by his office. “Chavez’s agenda, hailed by many Democrats, produced nothing but poverty, violence and oppression.”

Stockman’s return to D.C. has done little to alter the impressions of his detractors, who long ago dismissed him as a fringe politician with a loyal following.

“I believed in 1994 that Stockman was a nut, and I think that is still the case,” said Bruce Drury, a political science professor at Lamar University in Beaumont.

That’s a widespread — if decidedly uncharitable — description of the unapologetic conservative with a knack for making news.

“Steve Stockman was not taken to be a serious political figure when he was briefly in Congress in the mid-1990s, and is not taken seriously now that he is briefly, I think, back in Congress,” says Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson. “He will rocket around the Capitol, setting off small explosions as he goes, until he embarrasses himself sufficiently that his constituents again remove him.”

Stockman had not agreed to an interview for this article by late Friday. But some of his Republican colleagues say the criticism of the Texas Republican is unfair.

“Congressman Stockman is a true Texan,” said Rep. Randy Weber, a Pearland Republican who represents a neighboring district along the Gulf Coast. “He loves God and Country. He stands strong for our citizens, our conservative values and liberty.”

Rep. Rohrabacher, who is perhaps Stockman’s closest friend in Washington, says his Texas buddy is often misunderstood because he doesn’t share the elitist attitude of many lawmakers, journalists and academics.

“He’s really down home. There’s nothing pretentious about him,” said Rohrabacher. “He could be the guy fixing the plumbing in your house or making sure the dead tree in the lawn is removed.”

Stockman is the latest in a long line of Texas political characters. From Sam Houston to Charlie Wilson, Davey Crockett to Ann Richards, the state has been blessed with larger-than-life figures who have become the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters or Broadway lore.

But while most of Texas’ political legends proudly wore their scars in public — think a shirtless Lyndon Baines Johnson at the White House — today’s most colorful Texan in the nation’s capital is a mystery man. The Michigan native rarely talks about his past, which reportedly includes some brushes with the law, a period where he lived out of his car in Fort Worth and jobs including banker, political consultant, teacher, conservative organizer and fiber optics company executive.

In the nation’s capital, he rarely speaks on the House floor, eschews Washington’s social whirl and avoids almost all direct contact with the mainstream media — communicating mainly through tart tweets and provocative press releases.

“He’s enigmatic,” said University of Texas political scientist Sean Theriault. “So long as the mystery pervades, he can be an enduring figure. If he can be enduring, why would he possibly clear it up?”

Stockman’s mysterious side has led to a parlor game of sorts in Texas political circles. The question: Is he crazy like a fox — or just plain crazy?

“I want to say he’s a crazy man,” says former Rep. Nick Lampson, a Beaumont Democrat who defeated Stockman in 1996. “But I can’t say he’s a crazy man. He thinks — differently. He only sees government as something that needs to be shut down or done away with. His views are not what I grew up believing were mainstream. But he’s found a way where he can succeed politically.”

In the modern social media world, Stockman may have found a new way to bypass the media and political elites. He is, by a wide margin, the most prolific user of social media in the Texas congressional delegation. After just two months in office, he has built up a list of more than 5,000 followers and averages 27 tweets per day — five times the number of the second-heaviest Twitter user in the delegation, Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas. Over the past month, he has added an average of 59 followers per day, more than double the rate of the runner-up, freshman Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat.

“Very few people have established a ‘brand’ as quickly as he has,” one congressional colleague said admiringly.

While the social media world tends to lean Democratic, it is very pro-Stockman. Despite some scalding criticism from the left, 62 percent of references to the Texas Republican have been favorable, according to an analysis conducted by the Houston Chronicle using the Sentinent140.com content-analysis tool.

Stockman has used social media and the internet to keep himself in the news — on his own terms. Just look at his skill at generating national headlines by inviting Nugent to the 2013 State of the Union festivities. The men met at a 2011 Tax Day concert by Nugent at Nutty Jerry’s entertainment complex in Winnie — although Stockman says he attended a 1975 concert by his fellow Michigander in Detroit.

Nugent said in an interview that he likes Stockman because they share Detroit roots and both believe that “we have the individual, God-given right to keep and bear arms.” They also share a fear and loathing of the current occupant of the White House. As Nugent puts it, “I don’t know whether to laugh or throw up” when thinking of Obama.

Stockman told the Houston Chronicle in January that his invitation to Nugent was calculated to focus maximum publicity on his efforts to stop all new gun-control proposals in the aftermath of the Newtown school shootings.

“I couldn’t have gotten the attention HE did,” Stockman said of Nugent.

Stockman’s comeback in the newly drawn 36th District, which runs from southeastern Harris County east to the Louisiana border and the Piney Woods, was far from a sure thing. But he topped the early frontrunner in the 12-candidate GOP field, state Sen. Mike Jackson of La Porte, in the May 29 primary and surged past the top primary vote-getter, financial planner Stephen Takach, in a July 31 runoff dominated by Tea Party conservatives who also came out to vote for Senate candidate Cruz.

Stockman’s campaign was fueled by a well-organized coalition of social conservative groups, Tea Party activists and gun-rights advocates. Gun Owners of America, a longtime political ally, sponsored a Keep and Bear Arms BBQ for him in Bridge City. Stockman mailed more than 400,000 fliers flashing headlines like “Gunowners Furious as Takach sides with ‘gun grabbers’?” and “Stephen Takach drove family friend into bankruptcy.”

It wasn’t the first time Stockman was used controversial mailings in a campaign. Texas GOP leaders condemned him in 1998 when he accused George W. Bush ally Tony Garza, his Republican rival for the Texas Railroad Commission, of condoning and abetting voter fraud by undocumented immigrants. In 2001, a lawyer for Houston Republican Rep. John Culberson filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against Stockman for allegedly distributing “a false, defamatory and libelous pamphlet” that accused Culberson of having been disbarred, evading taxes and favoring a “Hillary Clinton-style” health reform law. Stockman had been affiliated with Culberson’s primary election opponent.

If Democrats are hoping that some Stockman controversy will bring them his congressional seat — as it did in 1996 — they are likely to be disappointed. Stockman’s new congressional district is overwhelmingly Republican. GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won 73 percent of its votes in 2012, and Stockman took 71 percent. Stockman’s most serious political threat could come in a GOP primary, but his pro-gun, pro-life, anti-spending agenda is exceedingly popular in the very conservative district.

“I’d say he’s 90 percent safe in the 36th District,” said University of Houston political scientist Dick Murray. “It is a new geography which favors a new member establishing himself for future GOP primaries, which will be the effective elections for the rest of the decade.”

With relatively little political risk at home, Stockman can concentrate on the ideological battles of Washington.

“A lot of fights in Congress are more akin to bar room brawls,” says California Rep. Rohrabacher. “If you’re in that kind of fight, you want Steve Stockman on your side — not some kind of namby pamby.”

Also contributing to this report were Alison Sullivan and Joanna Raines of the Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau.